


Rituals

by prozacplease



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Back Pain, Fluff, HYDRA Husbands, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Injuries, Old Age, Pubic Hair, Reservoir Dogs References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 07:03:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5196680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prozacplease/pseuds/prozacplease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack takes care of Brock after a hard mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rituals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bekaylo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bekaylo/gifts).



> This story is a little birthday present for a good friend. I'm sorry it's a few days late. Thank you for the story you gifted to me and all the wonderful comments you've left on my stories. Love ya!

Jack heads toward the bedroom, turning off lights as he goes. It’s late and it’s raining and Brock was supposed to be home hours ago. The pizza is still in its box on the kitchen counter. Good thing Brock likes cold pizza. Cold beer, too.

Jack isn’t upset as he climbs into bed. Missions often work on flexible schedules, especially after all the important stuff is done. But he was planning on Brock being in bed next to him. He’s been looking forward to drunk, pizza-flavored kisses and Brock’s hands roving all over his body. The smell of dried-on sweat mixed with gunpowder and a whiff of hair gel. Brock’s loud, obnoxious laugh.

He listens to the wind blowing through the trees and howling around the corners of the apartment building. Rain spatters against the window panes with each gust of wind. Jack finds it soothing, but it would be better if Brock were here.

Jack is caught between sleep and awareness when his phone starts buzzing on the nightstand. The vibrations cause it to travel minutely across the wooden surface. Jack grabs it before it buzzes right onto the floor.

“Mmhello?”

“Hey, it’s me,” Brock says. “We just got back to the Trisk.”

“Hey,” Jack says. He can’t help the way his mouth curls up into a fond smile. “Got tired of waitin’ up for ya.”

“Sorry. The weather’s bad,” Brock says. There’s a pause. “Can you come get me? I’m havin’ a muscle spasm in my back and I don’t have cab fare.”

Jack rolls onto his back and tries to not sigh into the phone. With his bad eye, night driving is difficult and dangerous, especially in the rain. “Can’t someone give you a ride?”

“Jack…”

Jack can hear the pain in Brock’s voice. See him curled up on the floor in agony.

“Okay, okay,” Jack says, sitting up in bed. “But it’ll be a few minutes. Can you hang on that long?”

“Yeah,” Brock says. "Yeah."

Jack puts the phone on speaker while he throws on clothes, cradles it between his ear and shoulder as he walks out to his car. But he has to hang up in order to drive. He needs his full concentration to navigate in the dark with one eye. The rain on the windshield and the wet pavement reflecting the light of the streetlamps pose more challenges. Thankfully, Jack knows the drive to the Triskelion very well.

He meets Brock in a cafeteria area. On one side of the room, the lights are turned off and the kitchen is closed down for the night. Brock is hunched over the table, still fully dressed in his tactical gear. It’s normal to look like hell after a long mission, but Brock is really showing it. Jack can’t help the noise of pity that comes out of him when they make eye contact.

“Everybody just left you?” Jack asks. “Didn’t take you to the infirmary?”

Brock’s face is twisted up in pain and he sounds irritated. “Sent ‘em home. I didn’t wanna go.”

“Can you even walk?”

“Dragged my ass here, didn’t I?”

Brock gets up from his chair, but needs the nearby table for support. It’s a slow walk to Jack’s car. Brock can move, even though it’s obvious he’s stiff and hurting. Jack moves ahead to open the front passenger door, but Brock says he wants to lay in the backseat.

“This is some _Reservoir Dogs_ shit,” Jack says, looking behind him to back out of the parking spot.

Brock gives a short, sharp laugh. “At least I’m not bleeding all over your interior, right?”

The joking stops when Brock’s spasm gets worse and he’s left cursing into the upholstery of the back seat. Jack hates seeing Brock twisted up in pain and the sound of his voice makes Jack’s heart race. His foot gets heavy on the accelerator and he runs a red light when he realizes that slamming on the brakes would send Brock flying.

When they arrive at Jack’s apartment, Brock is so incapacitated that he needs help getting up the stairs.

“Just lay me on the floor,” Brock begs. “Please.”

“Relax, baby. I know the drill.”

This isn’t the first time that Brock has had a muscle spasm in his back, and it won’t be his last if he stays in his current line of work. Jack has nursed Brock through many of these. He helps Brock lie on the living room carpet, where he curls into a miserable heap on his side. He needs the firm surface to recover. The bed or the couch is too soft.

Jack leaves the room briefly and returns with a clear plastic tub that rattles with pill bottles. Next, he goes to the kitchen and fills a water bottle. Something that Brock can drink out of while lying mostly on his side.

Jack sits on the floor and starts digging through the tub. “Let’s do a muscle relaxer and some ibuprofen,” he says.

“Jack, we’re so fuckin’ old,” Brock laments.

“It’s hell, ain’t it?” Jack dumps different pills into his palm and Brock takes them without hesitation.

Jack forces himself to be cheerful because Brock is so miserable, but his friend is right. How long can they keep doing this shit? Brock is getting more grizzled and he no longer bemoans the gray hairs he finds in his head of thick, black hair. The corners of Jack’s eyes crinkle when he smiles and he has resigned himself to the constant pain in his one hip. Retirement is a long way off for them, but they’re both going to pieces. Two bodies battered by hard lives.

“Sorry I screwed up our ritual,” Brock says.

Jack pulls a heating pad out of the tub and gets up to plug it in. “Pizza and a fuck on the couch ain’t much of a ritual,” he says.

“I was looking forward to it,” Brock says. “Beer, too.”

“You can have all that when your back cooperates,” Jack says, placing the heating pad against Brock’s lower back. He covers him with the afghan from the back of the couch.

“Man, I was really gonna lay it on ya.” Brock sounds wistful.

“I’ll let you feel like a big man. Don’t worry,” Jack says. He starts to pull cushions off the couch and lay them next to Brock, making a nest for himself. “And not to make you feel bad, but I _did_ spend like an hour trimming my pubes.”

Brock laughs. The meds are kicking in. “Deforestation just for me?”

“Yep,” Jack says. He keeps talking as he steps into the bedroom to get a pillow and a blanket. His voice echoes off the wood flooring in there. “Nutsack and everything.”

Brock must be impressed, because he jams a hand down the front of Jack’s sweatpants the second he lays down next to him. “Man, you went short. Daddy like,” he says, feeling the all the stubbly hairs. “Did you use clippers?”

“Yeah, your face trimmer worked great,” Jack says.

Brock laughs so hard that his back spasms again.

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  [Come hang out with me on Tumblr!](http://www.prozacplease.tumblr.com)
> 
> ♥ Comments are always appreciated. ♥


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